"That's my most important stage race victory," Kwiatkowski was quoted as saying by cyclingnews.com. "Tirreno-Adriatico is one of the hardest stage races to win so I'm really happy to be on the first step.

"It's been a difficult week for all Team Sky, we had some bad luck with Geraint Thomas, but at the end of the day we were motivated to have a really good race and that's how it was."

Dennis posted a time of 11 minutes and 14 seconds to pip Jos van Emden (Lotto NL-Jumbo) and Jonathan Castroviejo (Team Sky) to victory in the concluding 10-kilometre time-trial.